Christmas 2017

Wishing everyone a Wonderful Christmas and a
Peaceful and Happy New Year

Some of this years festive creations

Advent weekend

Hope you enjoyed receiving your Advent calendars and opening them this weekend.
We started opening ours on Saturday when we were all at home to appreciate them, so we opened Friday and Saturday's in one go!
I have a lovely fabric one that I bought for my daughter, Jennifer, when she was very young.
It was bought from a craft fair, I do like to support these fairs when people have put such effort into making wonderful handcrafted items. Such treasured makes add to the festive memories each year.
This year I decided to make a matchbox Advent, I've been wanting to do this for a while now and finally got around to doing it!
Really enjoyed making it and I was very happy with the result, It's filled with individually numbered, wrapped chocolates and a selection of different stud earrings.

Making the most of an extra hour

Today I've been pottering about and getting some bits ready for a craft class on Tuesday.
I thought the day was whizzing by and then realised I hadn't changed my little clock in the kitchen.
So the realisation of an extra hour to my day was just perfect!.
In readiness for the darker nights and relaxing evenings I recently purchased
Lavender sleep balm from the local lavender farm and hop shop, along with a lavender wheat bag for neck and shoulder aches and pains.
They are just perfect for cosy winter evenings and the balm seems to be aiding a good nights sleep and what's not to like about relaxing warmth on your neck and shoulders with the soothing aroma of lavender.
This coming week I have a couple of classes to finish preparing for, one on Tuesday and one on Sunday and then it will be demo time again.
Last week I attended a local village craft market with craft supplies, gifts, techniques and inspiration, more details to follow on the next dates and info on the sidebar of my blog.
Here's a picture round up of recent activity, have a lovely relaxing evening, the light is already starting to go, love and crafty hugs xKx

and relax...

Craft class using Stix2 adhesives, foils and glitters along with various stamps including Woodware bubbles along with 

Sizzix thinlits Seasons Greetings dies.

Farningham Village Friday Market 

A little visitor posed for the camera! :-) 

Decoupage technique showing how to transform a simple wooden spoon into a pretty gift 

Celebrating Halloween with a Pumpkin Patch

Our house is all about Halloween this weekend.
I've been super busy and in-between craft events and activities my attention has been on creating crafty Halloween Trick or Treats!
Those of you who follow me on Facebook might remember the start of a project recently that looked like this -

It started life like this -

Plain ceramic container just 10 x 9cm

It's ended up like this -

A mini Autumnal Pumpkin Patch, I do love miniature things so creating this was right up my street!

Then there were a few Autumn makes for my Docrafts demo's and for the lovely Angela, Polly Allsorts, Hochanda debut -

Today I've been finishing off our Pumpkin Patches in the garden, our wall baskets and container -

Now I'm off to prepare for a Saturday Halloween evening, a few sweet Trick or Treats, a glass of something Rose,

Strictly Come Dancing Halloween Night and 

Harry Potter, A History of Magic!

Pretty much perfect in my book!

Enjoy your Halloween activities everyone, Love and Crafty Hugs xKx

Polly Allsorts debut on Hochanda

The lovely and talented Angela (Polly Allsorts) made her debut on Hochanda just a week ago.
These whimsical houses that she designed are just fabulous, in 3 sizes, the possibilities are endless!
I decorated the medium size Topsy Toadstool using wood effect papers and various dies to create a Gingerbread Christmas theme style. it was such great fun to do.
The small Tiptoe Palace was painted with acrylic paints and I used Halloween dies to create a Trick or Treat sweetie box, ideal for lolly's and all those sweet treats.
The next new design is awaiting my attention and I look forward to getting creative with it.

Autumn scene Docrafts Xcut die cutting technique

Based on some stamping card samples below from an Autumn class held last year.
Today I am sharing a similar idea using die cutting techniques using Xcut dies from Docrafts.

I used the nesting leaves die set and cut into a piece of paper from the Wood Elements range, this is such a useful and versatile paper range and I have used it so much.

Behind the leaf cut outs I mounted paper from the Pigment Elements range, again another really useful selection of beautiful coloured papers.

Next I die cut elements from the Woodland Tag die set.

Something I do quite a lot which seems to be popular is to shadow some of the die cut elements with colours layered behind to make the image stand out more and give a 3D effect.

I have done this here with the Fox, Stag and Squirrel, layering a darker colour behind.

I chose some Autumnal card colours to mat and layer onto a Kraft card blank 

Finally I assembled the different elements, using foam pads for some of them to add different layers.
I also added various coloured leaves using the mini leaf die.

If you have any question on techniques or products used please don't hesitate to ask...